


The Claiming Of A Sleeping Beauty

by ziallfiles



Series: Sleeping Beauty Trilogy z.h [1]
Category: One Direction, directioners
Genre: M/M, Ziall Horalik - Freeform, Ziall Horlik, ziall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:54:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziallfiles/pseuds/ziallfiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,' the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now in retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him. And to top it all off, Beauty is a boy</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/209200) by Anne Rice. 



I had all my young life known the story of Sleeping Beauty, cursed to sleep for a hundred years, with her parents, the King and Queen, and all of the Court, after pricking her finger on a spindle.  
But I did not believe it until I was inside the castle.

Even the bodies of those other Princes caught in the thorns of the rose vines that covered the walls had not made me believe it. They had come believing it, true enough, but I must see for myself inside the castle.

Careless with grief for the death of my father, and too powerful under my mother's rule for my own good, I cut these awesome vines at their roots, and immediately prevented them from ensnaring me. It was not my desire to die so much as to conquer.

And picking my way through the bones of those who had failed to solve the mystery, I stepped alone into the great banquet hall.The sun was high in the sky and those vines had fallen away, so the light fell in dusty shafts from the lofty windows.

And all along the banquet table, I saw the men and women of the old Court, sleeping under layers of dust, their ruddy and slack faces spun over with spider webs.  
I gasped to see the servants dozing against the walls, their clothing rotted to tatters.  
But it was true, this old tale. And, fearless as before, I went in search of the Sleeping Beauty who must be at the core of it.

In the topmost bedchamber of the house I found her. I had stepped over sleeping chambermaids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the place, I finally stood in the door of her sanctuary. But when I got in I didn't find a girl... I found a boy.

His soft hair lay wild and spiky against the deep green velvet of his bed, and his white shirt in loose folds revealed the rounded nipple and limbs of a young man.

I opened the shuttered windows. The sunlight flooded down on him. And approaching him, I gave a soft gasp as I touched his cheek, and his teeth through his parted lips, and then his tender rounded eyelids.

His face was perfect to me, and his embroidered coat had fallen deep into the crease between his legs so that I could see the shape of his sex beneath it.  
I drew out my sword, with which I had cut back all the vines outside, and gently slipping the blade between the valley of his chest, let it rip easily through the old fabric.

his shirt was laid open to the hem, and I folded it back and looked at him . His nipples were a rosy pink as were his lips, and the hair between his legs was dark brown and curlier than the short spiking hair of his head which covered his arms almost down to his hips on either side of him.

I cut the sleeves away, lifting him ever so gently to free the cloth, and the weight of his head seemed to pull him down over my arm, and his mouth opened just a little bit wider.

I put my sword to one side and removed my heavy armor. And then I lifted him again, my left arm under his shoulders, my right hand between his legs, my thumb on top of his pubis.

He made no sound; but if a person could moan silently, then he made such a moan with his whole attitude. His head fell towards me, and I felt the hot moisture against my right hand, and laying him down again, I framed both of his nipples with my hands, and sucked gently on one and then the other.

They were plump and firm, these nipples. He'd been fifteen when the curse struck him. And I bit at his nipples, moving the skin surrounding them almost roughly so as to feel their weight, and then lightly I massaged them, delighting in this.

My desire has been hard and almost painful to me when I had come into the room, and now it was urging me almost mercilessly.

I mounted him, parting his legs, giving the white inner flesh of his thighs a soft, deep pinch, and, clasping his right shoulder in my left hand, I thrust my sex into him.  
I was holding him up as I did this, to gather his mouth to me, and as I broke through his innocence, I opened his mouth with my tongue and pinched his nipple sharply.

I sucked on his lips, I drew the life out of him into myself, and feeling my seed explode within him, hearing him cry out.

And then his blue eyes opened.

"Beauty!" I whispered to him.

He closed is eyes, his mousy eyebrows brought together in a little frown and the sun  
gleaming on his broad white forehead.

I lifted his chin, kissed is throat, and drawing my organ out of his tight anus, hearing him,  
moan beneath me.

He was stunned. I lifted him until he sat naked, one knee crooked on the ruin of his  
velvet short on the bed which was as flat and hard as a table.

"I've awakened you, my dear," I said to him. "For a hundred years you've slept and so have all those who loved you. Listen. Listen! You'll hear this castle come alive as no one before you has ever heard it."

Already a shriek had come from the passage outside. The serving girl was standing there with her hands to her lips.

And I went to the door to speak to her.

"Go to your master, the King. Tell him the Prince has come who was foretold to remove the curse on this household. Tell him I shall be closeted now with his son."

I shut the door, bolting it, and turned to look at Beauty.

Beauty was covering himself with his hands. But he looked at me and his eyes struck me as devoid of fear or cunning. He was like those tender animals of the wood just before you slew them in the hung: eyes wide, expressionless.

His chest heaved with anxious breath. And now I laughed, drawing near, and sweeping his hair from his eyes. He looked up at me steadily, his cheeks suffused with a raw blush, and again I kissed him.

I opened his mouth with my lips, and taking his hands in my left hand I laid the down on his naked lap.

"Innocent beauty," I whispered.

"My name is Niall" he said softly

"Niall..." I gently nodded

I knew what he was seeing as he looked at me. i was only three years older than him. Eighteen, newly a man, but afraid of nothing and no one. I was tall, black haired; I had a lean build which made me agile. I liked to think of myself as a sword -- light, straight, and very deft, and utterly dangerous.

And I had left behind me many who would concur with this.

I had not so much pride in myself not as immense satisfaction. I had gotten to the core of the accursed castle.

There were knocks at the door, cries.  
I didn't bother to answer them. I laid Niall down again.

"I'm your Prince," I said, "and that is how you will address me, and that is why you will  
obey me."

I parted his legs again. I saw the tensing of his hole against the cloth and this made me  
laugh softly to myself as again I gently entered him.

He gave a soft series of moans that were like kisses to my ear. "Answer me properly," I whispered.

"My Prince," he said.

"Ah," I sighed, "that is lovely."

When I opened the door, the room was almost dark. I told the servants I would have my supper now, and I would receive the King immediately.

Niall I ordered to dine with me, and to remain with me, and I told him firmly that he was to wear no clothing.

"It's my wish to have you naked and always ready for me," I said.

I might have told him he was incomparably lovely, with only the surrounding air to clothe him, and the blushes on his cheeks to cover him, and his hands trying so vainly to shield his sex, but I didn't say that aloud.

Rather I took his little wrists and held them behind his back as the table was brought in, and then I ordered him to sit opposite.

The table was not so wide that I couldn't reach him easily, touch him, caress his nipples if I liked.

And reaching out I lifted his chin so that I could inspect him by the light of the servants' candles.

The table was laid with roast pork and fowl, fruit in big glistening silver bowls, and immediately the King stood in the door, dressed in his heavy ceremonial robes, a gold crown atop his head as he bowed to me and waited for the command to enter.

"Your Kingdom has been neglected for a hundred years," I said as I lifted my wine goblet. "Your vassals have many of them fled to other lords; good land lies fallow. But you have your wealth, your Court, your soldiers. So much lies ahead of you."

"I am in your debt, Prince," the King answered. "But will you tell me your name, the name of your family?"

"My mother, Queen Trisha, lives on the other side of the forest," I said. "In your time, it was my great-grandfather's kingdom; he was King Heinrick, your powerful ally."

I saw the King's immediate surprise and then his look of confusion. I understood it perfectly. And when a blush came to the King's face, I said:

"And in those times you served your time in my great-grandfather's castle, did you not, and perhaps your queen also?"

The King pressed his lips together in resignation and slowly nodded. "You are the son of a powerful monarch," he whispered.

And I could see that the King would not raise his eyes to see his naked son, Niall.

"I will take Niall to serve," I said. "He is mine now."

I took out my long silver knife and, cutting the hot, succulent pork, I laid several pieces on my own plate. The servants all about me vied with one another to place other dishes near me.

Niall sat with his hands over his chest and sex again; his cheeks were moist with tears, and he was trembling slightly.

"As you wish," said the King. "I am in your debt."

"You have your life and your Kingdom now," I said "And I have your son. I will spend the night here. And tomorrow set out to make him my Prince across the mountains."

I had placed some fruit on my plate, and other hot morsels of cooked food, and now I snapped my fingers gently and in a whisper told Niall to come around the table to me.

I could see his shame before the servants. But I brushed his hand away from his sex and body.

"Never cover yourself like that again," I said. I spoke these words almost tenderly, as I  
lifted swept hair back from his face.

"Yes, my Prince," he whispered. He had a lovely little voice. "But it's so difficult."

"Of course it is," I smiled. "But for me you'll do it."

And now I took him, and placed him on my lap, cradling him in my left arm.

"Kiss me," I said, and feeling his warm mouth on mine again, I felt my desire rising too soon for my taste, but I decided I could savor this slight torment.

"You may go," I said to the King. "Tell your servants to have my horse ready in the morning. I won't need a horse for Niall. My soldiers you've found, no doubt, at your gates," and I laughed. "They were afraid to come in with me. Tell them to be ready at dawn, and then you can say goodbye to your son, Niall."

The King glanced up very quickly to accept my commands and with unfailing courtesy he backed out of the doorway.

I turned my full attention to Niall.

Lifting a napkin I wiped at his tears. He kept his hands obediently on his thighs, exposing his sex, and I observed that he did not try to hide his stiff little pink nipples with his arms and I approved of this.

"Now don't be frightened," I said to him softly, feeding a little on his trembling mouth again, and then slapping his nipples so they hardened a little more. "I could be old and ugly.

"Ah, but then I could feel sorry for you," he said in a sweet, tremulous voice.

I laughed.

"I'm going to punish you for that," I said to him tenderly. "But now and then just a little very ladylike impertinence is amusing."

He blushed darkly, biting his lip.

"Are you hungry, beautiful one?" I asked.

I could see he was afraid to answer.

"When I ask you will say, 'Only if it pleases you, my Prince,' and I shall know the answer is yes. Or, 'Not unless it should please you, my Prince,' and I shall know the answer is no. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, my Prince," he answered. "I'm hungry only if it pleases you."

"Very good, very good," I said to him with genuine feeling.

I lifted a small cluster of glistening purple grapes and fed them to Niall one by one, taking the seeds out of his mouth and casting them aside.

I watched with obvious pleasure as he drank deeply from the wine cup I held to his lips. Then I wiped his mouth and kissed him.

His eyes were glistening. But he had stopped crying. I felt the smooth flesh of his back, and his hard nipples again.

"Superb," I whispered. "And were you terribly spoilt before and given everything that you wished?"

He was confused, blushing again, and then full of shame he nodded.

"Yes, my Prince, I think perhaps..."

"Don't be afraid to answer me with many words," I coaxed, "as long as they are respectful. And never speak unless I speak to you first, and in all these things, be careful to note what pleases me. You were very spoilt, given everything, but were you willful?"

"No, my Prince, I don't think I was that," he said. "I tried to be a joy to my parents."

"And you'll be a joy to me, my dear," I said lovingly.

Still holding him firmly in my left arm, I turned to to supper.

I ate heartily, pork, roast fowl, some fruit, and several cups of wine. Then I told the  
servants to take it all away and leave us.

New sheets and coverlets had been laid on the bed; there were fresh down pillows, and  
roses in a vase nearby, and several candelabra.

"Now," I said as I rose and set him before me. "We must get to bed as we have a long  
journey before us tomorrow. And I have still to punish you for your earlier impertinence."

Immediately the tears stood in his eyes; he looked up at me imploring. He almost  
reached to cover his chest and his sex, and then remembering himself he made his hands into two little helpless fists at his sides.

"I won't punish you very much," I said gently, lifting his chin. "It was just a little offense, and your first after all. But Beauty, to confess the truth, I shall love punishing you."

He was biting his lip, and I could see he wanted to speak, and the effort to control his tongue and his hands was almost too much for him.

"All right, lovely one, what do you want to say?" I asked.

"Please, my Prince," he begged. "I'm so afraid of you."

"You'll find me more reasonable than you expect," I said.

I removed my long cloak, tossing it over a chair, and bolted the door. Then I snuffed all  
but a few candles.

I would sleep in my clothes as I did most nights, in the forest, or in the country inns, or in the houses of those humble peasants at which I sometimes stopped, and that was no great inconvenience to me.

And as I drew near him now, I thought I must be merciful and make his punishment quick.

And seating myself on the side of the bed, I reached out for him, and pulling his wrists into my left hand I brought his naked body down over my lap so that his legs dangled over the floor helplessly.

"Very, very lovely," I said, his right hand moving languidly over his rounded buttocks, forcing them ever so slightly apart.

Niall was crying aloud, but muffling his cries into the bed, his hands held out in front of him by my long left arm.

And now with my right hand I spanked his buttocks hard and heard his cries grow louder. It wasn't really much of a slap.

But it left a red mark on him. And I spanked him hard again, and I felt him writhing against me, the heat and moisture of his sex against my leg, and again I spanked him.

"I think you are sobbing more from the humiliation than the pain," I scolded him in a soft voice.

He was struggling not to make his cries too loud.

I flattened out my right hand, and feeling the heat of his reddened buttocks drew it up and delivered another series of hard, loud slaps, smiling as I watched Niall struggle.

I could have spanked him much harder, for my own pleasure, and without really hurting him. But I thought better of it. I had so many nights ahead of me for these delights.

I lifted him up now so that he was standing in front of me.

"push your hair back from your eyes," I commanded.

His tear-stained face was unspeakably beautiful, his lips trembling, his blue eyes gleaming with the dampness of the tears.

He obeyed immediately.

"I don't think you were so very spoilt," I said. "I find you very obedient and eager to please, and this makes me very happy."

I could see his relief.

"Clasp your hands behind your neck," I said, "under your hair. That's it. Very good." I lifted her chin again. "And you have a lovely modest habit of looking down. But now I want you to look directly at me."

He obeyed shyly, miserably. It seemed he felt his nakedness and his helplessness more fully now as he looked at me. His lashes were matted and dark, and his blue eyes larger than I had thought.

"Do you find me handsome?" I asked him. "Ah, but before you answer, I should like to know the truth from you, not what you think I should like to hear, or what would be best for you to say, you understand me?"

"Yes, my Prince," he whispered. He seemed calmer.

I reached out, massaged his right nipple lightly, and then stroked his downy underarms, feeling the little curve of the muscle there, and then I stroked my hand down his sex and between his legs so that he sighed and trembled.

"Now," I said, "answer my question, and describe what you see. Describe me as if you had only just met me and were confiding in your chambermaid."

Again he bit his lip, which I dearly loved, and then, his voice a little diminished by uncertainty, he said:

"You are very handsome, my Prince, no one could deny that. And for one...for one..."

"Go on," I said.

I drew him just a little closer so that his sex was against my knee, and putting my right arm about her, I cradled his upper body in my left hand and let my lips touch his cheek.

"And for one so young to be so commanding," he said, "it's not what one might expect."

"And tell me how does that show itself in me, other than my actions?"

"Your manner, my Prince," he said, gaining a little strength. "The look of your  
eyes, such dark eyes...your face. There are none of the doubts of youth in it."

I smiled and kissed his ear.

I wondered why the wet little slit at the end of his sex was so very hot.

My fingers could not keep from touching it.

Twice already I've had him today, and I would have him again, but I was thinking I should go about it more slowly.

"Would you like it if I were older?" I whispered.

"I had thought," he said, "that it would be easier.

To be commanded by one so very young," he said, "is to feel one's helplessness."

It seemed the tears had welled up and were spilling out of his eyes, so I pushed him gently back so I might see them.

"My darling, I have awakened you from a century's sleep, and restored your father's Kingdom. You're mine. And you won't find me such a hard master. Only a very thorough master. When you think night and day and every moment only of pleasing me, things will be very easy for you."

And as he struggled not to look away, I could see again the relief in his face, and that he was in complete awe of me.

"Now," I said, pushing my thumbs against his erect crown between his legs, and drawing him, close again so that he let out a little gasp before he could stop him,

"I want more of you than I've had before. Do you know what I mean, my Sleeping Beauty?"

He shook his head; for this moment he was in terror.

I lifted him up onto the bed and laid him down.

The candles threw a warm, almost rosy light over him.

He seemed on the verge of crying out, his hands struggling to keep still at his sides.

"My darling, you have a dignity about you that shields you from me, much like your lovely golden hair shrouds you and shields you. Now I want you to surrender to me. You'll see, and you'll be very surprised that you wept when I first suggested it."

I bent over him. I parted his legs. I could see the battle he fought not to cover himself or turn away from me. I stroked his thighs. Then with my finger and thumb, I reached above the silky damp hair itself to wrap them midway up his shaft and forced the skin very far up.

Niall gave a terrible shudder. With my left hand I covered his mouth, and behind my hand he cried softly.

It seemed easier for me with me covering his mouth and that was alright for now, I thought.

He shall be taught everything in time.

And with my right forefinger, I found that tiny puckering hole at the centre of his backside, and I my finger pressed upwards until he raised his hips, arching his back, in spite of his.

His little face under my hand was the picture of distress. I smiled to myself.

But even as I smiled, I felt the skin pucker as white began to spill from his front

"That's it, that's it, my darling," K said. "And you mustn't resist your Lord and master, hmmmm?"

Now I opened my clothing and took out my hard, eager sex, and mounting him I let it rest against his thigh as I continued to stroke him and work his head as well as his backside. I slipped my fingers around pressing two of the four I intended to put to use, into his soft and tight hole.

He was twisting from one side to the other, his hands gathering up the soft sheets at his sides into knots, and it seemed his whole body grew pink, and his nipples looked as hard as if they were tiny stones.

I could not resist them.

I bit at them with my teeth, playfully, not hurting him.

I licked them with my tongue, and then I licked up his sex, too, and as he struggled, and blushed and moaned beneath me, I mounted him, slowly.

Again he arched his back. And as I drove my organ into his loosened backside, I felt him shudder violently with unwilling pleasure.

An awful cry was muffled by the hand over his mouth; he was shuddering so violently it seemed he all by lifted me on top of him.

And then he lay still, moist, pink, with his eyes closed, breathing deeply as the tears flowed silently.

"That was lovely, my darling," I said. "Open your eyes."

He did it timidly.

But then he lay looking up at me.

"This has been so hard for you," I whispered. "You could not even imagine these things  
happening to you. And you are red with shame, and shaking with fear, and you believe perhaps it's one of the dreams you dreamed in your hundred years. But it's real, Beauty," I said. "And it is only the beginning! You think I've made you my Prince. But I've only started. The day will come my Prince. But I've only started. The day will come when you can see nothing but me as if I were the sun and the moon, when I mean all to you, food, drink, the air you breathe. Then you will truly be mine, and these first lessons...and pleasures..." I smiled, "will seem like nothing."

I bent over him. He lay so very still, gazing up at me.

"Now kiss me," I commanded. "And I mean, really...kiss me."

"It's Niall" he whispered, his lips crushing to mine


	2. The Journey And The Punishment At The Inn

The next morning all the Court was gathered in the Great Hall to see me off, and all of the Court, including the grateful King and Queen, stood with their eyes down, bowing from the waist as I came down the steps with a naked Beauty walking behind me.

I had commanded him to clasp his hands on the back of his neck beneath his hair, and to walk just a little to my right so that I might see him in the corner of my eye. And he obeyed, his bare feet making not the slightest sound on the worn stone steps as he followed me.

"Dear Prince," said the Queen, when I reached the great front door and saw that his soldiers stood mounted on the drawbridge, "we are in your eternal debt, but he is our only son."

I turned to look at him. He was yet beautiful, though more than twice Niall age, and I wondered if she too had served my great-grandfather.

"How can you question me?" I asked patiently. "I have restored your Kingdom, and you know full well if you remember anything of the ways of my land, that Niall will be much enhanced by his service there."

Then the telltale blush came to the Queen as it had to the King before, and she bowed his head in acceptance.

"But surely you will allow Niall some clothing," she whispered, "at least until he reaches the border of your Kingdom."

"All those towns between here and my Kingdom have owed their allegiance to us for a century. And in each I will proclaim your restoration and new dominion. Can you ask for more than that? The spring is warm already; Niall shall suffer no ill effects from serving me immediately."

"Forgive us, your Highness," the King hastened to say. "But is it the same in this age? Niall's servitude will not be forever?"

"It is the same now as it was always. Niall will be returned in time. And he shall be greatly enhanced in wisdom and beauty. Now, tell him to obey as your parents commanded you to obey when you were sent to us."

"The Prince speaks the truth, Niall," the King said in a low voice, still unwilling to look at his son. "Obey him. Obey the Queen. And though you find your servitude surprising and difficult at times, be confident you will return, as he says, greatly changed for the better."

I smiled.

The horses were restless on the drawbridge. my charger, a black stallion, was particularly hard to restrain, bidding them all farewell again, I turned and picked up Niall.

I heaved him easily over my right shoulder, clasping his ankles to my waist, and heard him cry out softly as he fell over my back. I could see his short hair bounce just before I mounted the stallion.

All the soldiers fell into place behind me.

I rode into the forest.

The sun spilled down in glorious rays through the heavy green leaves, the sky now brilliant and blue overhead only to vanish in a shifting green-tinted light as I rode on at the head of my soldiers, humming to myself, and now and then singing.

Niall's lithe, warm body swayed slightly over my shoulder. I could feel him trembling, and I understood his agitation. His naked buttocks were still red from the spanking I had given him, and I could well imagine the succulent vision he was to the men who rode after me.

As I walked my horse through a dense glade where the fallen leaves were thick and red and brown beneath me, I tied the rein on my saddle, and with my left hand felt the soft hairy little pelt between Niall's legs, and leaned my face against his warm hip, kissing it gently.

After a while, I pulled him down into my lap, turning him as before so he rested against my left arm, and I kissed his red face and brushed the short golden strands of his hair away from it, and then I suckled his nipples almost idly as though taking little drinks from them.

"Put your head on my shoulder," I said. And he inclined to me obediently at once.

But when I went to sling him over my shoulder again, he gave a little desperate whimper. I did not allow this to stop me. And having him firmly in place, his ankles clasped to my hip, I scolded him lovingly, and gave him several hard spanks with my left hand until I heard him crying.

"You must never protest," I repeated. "Not with sound, not with gesture. Only your tears may show me what you feel, and never think that I do not wish to know what you feel. Now respectfully, answer me."

"Yes, my Prince," Niall whimpered softly. I was thrilled to the sound of it.

When we came to the small town in the middle of the forest, there was great excitement, as everyone had already heard of the enchantment being broken.

And as I rode into the crooked little street with its high half-timbered houses blocking out the sky, people ran to the narrow windows and doorways. They crowded into the cobblestone alleyways.

Behind me, I could hear my men in hushed voices telling the townspeople who I was, that it was their Lord who had broken the enchantment. The boy I carried with me was the Sleeping Beauty.

Niall was sobbing softly, his body struggling with these sobs, but I held him firmly.

Finally with a great crowd following me, I arrived at the Inn, and my horse, with loud clops, entered the courtyard. My page quickly helped me down.

"We'll stop only for food and drink," I said. "We can go miles before sundown."

I stood Niall on his feet and watched with admiration as his hair fell flat on his head.

And I turned him around twice, pleased to see he kept his hands clasped behind his neck and his eyes down as I looked at him.

I kissed him devotedly.

"Do you see how they all look at you?" I said. "Do you feel how they admire your beauty? They are adoring you," I said. And opening his lips again, I sucked another kiss out of him, my hand squeezing his sore buttocks.

It seemed his lips clung to mine as if he were afraid to let me go, and then I kissed his eyelids.

"Now everyone is going to want to have a look at Beauty,"

I said to the Captain of the Guard. "Bind his hands over his head by a rope from the sign over the Inn gate, and let the people have their fill of him. But no one is to touch him. They can look all they like, but you stand guard and see that no one touches him. I'll have your food sent out to you."

"Yes, my Lord," said the Captain of the Guard.

But as I gently gave Niall over to him, he leaned forward, his lips out to me, and I received his kiss gratefully.

"You're very sweet, my darling," I said. "Now be modest and very very good. I should be very disappointed if all this adulation made my Beauty vain."

I kissed him again, and let the Captain have him.

Then going inside and ordering my meat and ale, I watched through the diamond- paned windows. The Captain of the Guard did not dare touch Niall, except to put the rope about his wrists. He led him by this to the open gate of the courtyard, and throwing the rope up over the iron rod that held the sign of the Inn, he quickly secured Niall's hands above his head, so that he was almost on tiptoe.

Then he motioned for the people to move back, and he stood against the wall with his arms folded as they pressed to look at Niall.

There were buxom women with stained aprons, and coarse men in breeches and heavy leather shoes, and the young well-to-do men of the town in their velvet cloaks with their hands on their hips as they eyed Beauty from a distance, unwilling to elbow in the crowd. And several young women, their elaborate white headdresses freshly done up, who had come out lifting their hems fastidiously as they looked at him.

At first everyone was whispering, but now people began to speak more freely.

Beauty had turned his face into his arm and let his hair shield his face, but then a soldier came out from the me and said:

"His Majesty said to turn him and lift his chin so they might have a better look at him."

An approving murmur went up from the crowd. "Very very lovely," said one of the young women.

"And this is what so many died for," said an old Cobbler.

The Captain of the Guard lifted Beauty's chin, and holding the rope above Niall, said gently: "You must turn around, Prince."

"O, please, Captain," he whispered.

"Don't make a sound, Prince, I beg you. Our Lord is very strict," he said. "And it's his wish that everyone admire you."

Beauty, with cheeks flaming, obeyed, turning so the crowd could see his reddened buttocks

and then again to show his chest and his sex as the Captain kept a finger under Niall's chin lightly. It seemed he breathed deeply as though trying to remain very calm. The young women were calling him beautiful and saying his nipples were magnificently pink.

"But such buttocks," whispered an old woman nearby. "You can see that he's been spanked. I doubt the poor Prince did anything much to deserve it."

"Not much," said a young man near him. "Except have the most beautiful and pertly shaped buttocks imaginable."

Beauty was trembling.

Finally I came out, ready to leave, and seeing the crowd as attentive as before, I myself took the rope down, and held it like a short leash above Beauty's head, to turn him.

I was amused by the crowd's grateful nods, and thanks, and bows to him; and very gracious in his generosity.

"Lift your chin, Beauty, I shouldn't have to lift it," I reproved him with a little deliberate frown of disappointment.

Beauty obeyed, his face so red that his eyebrows and eyelashes gleamed golden in the sun, and I kissed him.

"Come here, old man," I said to the old Cobbler. "Have you ever seen such loveliness?"

"No, your Majesty," said the old man. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and his legs were slightly bowed. His hair was gray but his green eyes gleamed with a special almost wistful pleasure. "He is truly a magnificent Prince, your Majesty, worth all the deaths of those who tried to claim him."

"Yes, I suppose so, and worth all the bravery of the Prince who did claim him," I smiled.

Everyone laughed politely. But they couldn't conceal their awe of me. They were staring at my armor, at my sword, and above all at my young face and dark black hair that sat in a messily groomed manner.

I drew the Cobbler closer. "Here," I said, "I give you permission if you like just to feel his treasures."

The old man smiled at me gratefully and almost innocently. He reached out, and hesitating a moment, felt Beauty's hardened nipples . Niall shivered, and tried obviously to repress a little cry.

The old man touched Niall's sex.

Then I drew up Niall's little leash so that he was standing on tiptoe; his body stiffened and seemed to grow more tense and at the same time more lovely, chest, and buttocks high, his calf muscles lifted, his chin and throat a perfect line.

"That's all. You must all go now," I said.

Obediently they backed away, but they continued to watch, as I mounted my horse, and instructed Beauty to clasp his hands behind his neck, I ordered him to walk before me.

Beauty led the way out of the Inn yard, I walked my horse behind him.

The people made way for him. They couldn't take their eyes off his lovely vulnerable body, and they squeezed against the narrow walls of the town to follow the spectacle to the edge of the forest.

When they had left the town behind, I told Beauty to come to me. I gathered him up and seated him before him again, and kissed him again, and scolded him:

"You found that so hard," I crooned. "Why were you so proud? Did you think yourself too good to be shown to the people?"

"I'm sorry, my Prince," he whispered.

"Don't you see, if you think only of pleasing me, and pleasing those to whom I show you, it will be simple for you." I kissed his ear, holding him tight to his chest. "You should have been proud of your shapely hips. You should have asked yourself, 'Am I pleasing my Prince? Do the people find me pleasing?'"

"Yes, my Prince," Beauty said meekly.

"You are mine, Beauty," I said a little more sternly. "And there is no command that you must shrink from obeying ever. If I tell you to please the lowliest vassal in the field, you will strain to obey me perfectly. He is your Lord then because I have said so. All those to whom I offer you are your Lords."

"Yes, my Prince," he said, but he was in great distress. I stroked his chest, pinching his nipples firmly now and then, and kissed him until I could feel his body struggling against me, and feel his nipples growing hard. It seemed he wanted to speak.

"What is it, Beauty?"

"Pleasing you, my Prince, pleasing you..." he whispered, as though his thoughts had spread into a delirium.

"Yes, pleasing me, that is your life now. How many of those in the world know such clarity, such simplicity? You please me and I shall always tell you exactly how to please me."

"Yes, my Prince," he sighed. But he was crying again.

"I will treasure you all the more for it. The boy I found in the castle room was nothing to me such as you are now, my devoted Prince."

But I was not entirely satisfied with the way in which I was instructing Beauty. I told him when we reached another town at nightfall that I was going to strip a little more dignity away from him to make it easier for him.

And while the townspeople pressed their faces to the leaded glass windows of the Inn, I had Beauty wait on my table.

On his hands and knees he hurried across the rough boards of the Inn floor to fetch my plate from the kitchen. And though he was allowed to walk back with it, he was again on all fours to fetch my flagon. The soldiers devoured their supper, throwing silent glances at him by the light of the fire.

He wiped the table for me and when a morsel of food spilled from his plate to the floor, I commanded Beauty to eat it. With tears spilling from his eyes, Beauty obeyed, and then I gathered him, still on his knees, into my arms and rewarded him with dozens of wet and loving kisses. Obediently he put hi arms around my neck.

But this little morsel spilling had given me an idea. I ordered him to quickly fetch a plate from the kitchen again, and then told him to lay it on the floor at me feet.

I put food for him there from my plate, and told him to lift his head and eat it only with his mouth.

"You are my kitten," I laughed gaily. "And I would forbid you all those tears if they weren't so beautiful. Do you want to please me?"

"Yes, my Prince," he said.

With my foot I pushed his plate several paces away and told him to turn his buttocks to me as he continued his meal. I admired it, realizing the red marks from his spanking had almost healed. With the toe of my leather boot, I nudged at the silken hair I could see between his legs, felt his hard member beneath the hair, and sighed, thinking he was so very beautiful.

When he had finished his meal, with his lips he pushed the plate back to my chair as i ordered him to do it, and then I wiped his lips myself and fed him some wine from my cup.

I watched his beautiful throat as he swallowed, and kissed his eyelids.

"Now listen to me, I want you to learn from this," I said. "Everyone here can see you, all your charms, you're aware of it. But I want you to be very aware of it. Behind you, the townspeople at the windows are admiring you as they did when I brought you through the town. This should make you proud of yourself, not vain, but proud, proud that you have pleased me, and caught their admiration."

"Yes, my Prince," he said when I paused.

"Now think, you are very naked and very helpless, and you are mine completely."

"Yes, my Prince," he cried softly.

"That is your life now, and you are to think of nothing else, and regret nothing else. I want that dignity peeled away from you as if it were so many skins of the onion. I don't mean that you should ever be graceless. I mean that you should surrender to me."

"Yes, my Prince," he said.

I looked up at the Innkeeper who stood at the kitchen door with his wife and his daughter. They came to attention at once. But I looked only at the daughter. She was a young woman, very pretty in her own way, though nothing compared to Beauty. She had black hair and round cheeks, and a very tiny waist, and she dressed as many peasant women did, in a low- cut ruffled shirtwaist, and a short broad skirt that revealed her smart little ankles. She had an innocent face. She was watching Beauty in wonder, her big brown eyes moving anxiously to me and then shyly back to Beauty who knelt at my feet in the firelight.

"Now, as I told you," I said softly to Beauty, "all here admire you, and they enjoy you, the sight of you, your plump little rear, your lovely legs, those nipples which I cannot stop myself from kissing. But there is no one here, not the lowliest, who is not better than you, my Prince, if I command you to serve him."

Beauty was frightened. He nodded quickly as he answered "Yes, my Prince," and then very impulsively he bent and kissed my boot, but then he appeared terrified.

"No, that is very good, my darling," I stroked his neck, reassuring him. "That is very good. If I allow you one gesture to speak your heart unbidden it is that one. You may always show me respect of your own accord in that manner."

Again Beauty pressed his lips to the leather. But he was trembling.

"These townspeople hunger for you, hunger for more of your loveliness," I continued. "And I think they deserve a little taste of it that will delight them."

Beauty kissed my boot again, and let his lips rest there.

"O, don't think I should really let them have their fill of your charms. O, no," I said thoughtfully. "But I should give you this opportunity, both to reward their devoted attention and teach you that punishment will come whenever I desire to give it. You need not be disobedient to merit it. I will punish when it pleases me. Sometimes that will be the only reason for it."

Beauty couldn't keep himself from whimpering.

I smiled and beckoned to the Innkeeper's daughter. But she was so frightened of me that she didn't come forward until her father pushed her.

"My dear," I said gently. "In the kitchen, have you a flat wooden instrument, for shoveling the hot pans into the oven?"

There was a faint movement throughout the room as the soldiers glanced at one another. The people outside were pressing closer to the windows. The young girl nodded and quickly returned with a wooden paddle, very flat and smooth from years of use, with a good handle.

"Excellent,"

But Beauty was crying helplessly.

I quickly ordered the Innkeeper's daughter to seat herself on the edge of the high hearth which was the height of a chair, and told Beauty, on his hands and knees, to go to her.

"My dear," I to the Innkeeper's daughter, "these good people deserve a little spectacle. Their life is hard and barren. My men deserve it as well. And my Prince can well use the chastisement."

Beauty knelt crying before the girl who, seeing what she was to do, was fascinated.

"Up over her lap, Beauty," I instructed, "hands behind your neck, and lift your lovely head. At once!" i said, almost sharply.

Pricked by my voice, Beauty almost scurried to obey, and all those around him saw his tear- stained face.

"Keep your chin up like that, yes, lovely. Now, my dear," I spoke, looking at the girl who held Beauty over her lap and the wooden paddle in her other hand. "I want to see if you can wield that as hard as a man might wield it. Do you think you can do that?"

I not keep from smiling at the girl's delight and desire to please. She nodded murmuring a respectful reply, and when I gave her the command, she brought the paddle down hard on Beauty's naked buttocks. Beauty couldn't keep still. He struggled to keep quiet, but he couldn't keep still, and finally even the whimpers and moans escaped him.

The tavern girl spanked her harder and harder, and I enjoyed it, savoring it far more than the spanking I had given Beauty myself.

It was because I could see it much better, see Beauty's chest heaving, and the tears spilling down his face, and his little buttocks straining, as if, without moving, Beauty might somehow escape or deflect the girl's hard blows.

Finally, when the buttocks were very red but not welted, I told the girl to stop.

I could see his soldiers enthralled and all the townspeople as well, and then I snapped my fingers and told Beauty to come to me.

"Now eat your suppers, all of you, talk amongst yourselves, do as you like," I said quickly.

For a moment no one obeyed me. Then the soldiers turned to one another, and those outside, seeing that Beauty was retired down to kneeling at my, his arms veiling his red face, his raw and stinging buttocks pressed to his ankles, were murmuring and talking at the windows.

I gave Beauty another drink of wine. I was not sure I was entirely satisfied with him. I was thinking of many things.

I called the Innkeeper's daughter to me and told her she had been very good, gave her a gold coin, and took the paddle from her.

Finally it was time to go up. And driving Beauty before me, I gave him a few gentle but brisk spanks to hurry him up the stairs to the bedchamber.


	3. Beauty

Niall.

I stood at the foot of the bed, my hands clasped to my neck, my buttocks throbbing with a warm pain that felt so much better now than the spanking I had lately received that it was almost pleasure. I had for the moment stopped crying. I had only just pulled down the covers for him, with my teeth, my hands clasped behind my back, and then with my teeth had taken his boots to the edge of the room. And now I waited for further commands, trying to watch him , though my eyes were cast down, without me realizing it.

He had bolted the door, and was sitting on the side of the bed. his black hair, loose and curling at his shoulders gleamed in the light of the tallow candle. His face was very beautiful to me, perhaps because in spite of the size of the features, they were all rather delicately molded. I did not know for certain. Even his hands seemed to enthrall me. The fingers were so long, so white, so delicate. I was terribly relieved to be alone with him. The moments below in the Inn had been such an agony to me, and even though he had brought the wooden paddle with him and might spank me much harder with it than that dreadful girl, I was so glad to be alone with him that I could not be afraid of it. I was afraid, however, that I hadn't pleased him.

I searched my mind for faults. I had obeyed all his commands, and he understood how difficult it was for me. He knew completely what it meant for me to be stripped naked and revealed to everyone, to be helpless and made public and that this surrender of which he spoke could come in acts and gestures long before it could come from my mind. But no matter how hard I tried to excuse herself, I could not help but wondering if I could have tried harder.

Did he want me to cry out more when I was spanked? I was uncertain. Just thinking of that girl spanking me in front of everyone made me cry again, and I knew that the Prince would see my tears, and he might wonder why now, when I'd been told to stand still at the foot of the bed, I was crying. This is my life, I told myself, trying to calm myself. He has awakened me and claimed me. My parents are restored, their Kingdom is theirs again, and more significantly, life is theirs again, and I belong to him. I felt a great relaxation when I thought these things and a stirring in myself that seemed to make my sore and throbbing buttocks feel suddenly warmer. The pain made me so shamefully aware of that part of my body! 

But then as I squeezed my eyes against these soft and slow tears, I looked down at my naked body and the tiny hard nipples and felt that same awareness of myself there too, just as if he'd slapped my chest, which he hadn't done in a great while, and I felt softly bewildered.

My life, I struggled to understand. And I remembered that in the afternoon in the warm forest when I had been walking before his horse, and I had wondered if I looked beautiful to him, and I had wished that he would pick me up then, and kiss me and caress me. Of course I had not dared to look back. I couldn't imagine what he would have done had I been so foolish as to do that, but the sun had thrown their shadows ahead of us and I had seen the shadow of his profile, and felt such a pleasure that I was ashamed of it, and my legs had felt weak and there had been the oddest feeling in me, something I had never known in my earlier life, though perhaps in my dreams.

I was awakened now, at the foot of his bed, by his low but firm command.

"Come here, my darling." He motioned for me to kneel before him. "This shirt is to be opened down the front, and you will learn to do so with your lips and teeth, and I will be patient with you," he said.

I had thought it would be the paddle. And, very relieved, I went almost too quickly to obey, pulling the thick tie that closed the shirt at his throat. His flesh felt warm and smooth to me. Men's flesh. So different, I thought. And I quickly pulled loose the second tie and the tired. I had a struggle with the fourth which was at his waist, but he didn't move, and then when I was finished, I bowed my head, my hands as before on the back of my neck and waited.

"Open my breeches," he said to me.

My cheeks flamed; I could feel it. But again I didn't hesitate. I pulled the fabric forward over the hook until the hook slipped out and let it go. And now I could see his sex, bulging there, painfully twisted. I wanted suddenly to kiss it, but I didn't dare and was shocked at my impulse.

He had lifted it free. It was hard. I thought of it between my legs, filling me, rough and too big for my back opening, and of that terrible pleasure which had suffused me and wasted me the night before, and I knew I was blushing furiously.

"Now go to the stand in the corner," he said, "and bring back the basin with water in it."

I almost scurried across the floor. Several times in the Inn he had told me to move fast, and though I had hated it at first, I now did it instinctively. I brought the basin in both hands and set it down. There was a cloth in the water.

"Wring out the cloth tightly," he said, "and bathe me quickly."

I did as I was told at once, staring in amazement at his sex, its length, its hardness, and the tip of it with its tiny opening. I had been so sore from it yesterday, yet that pleasure had paralyzed me. Never had I guessed at such a secret.

"Now, do you know what I want of you?" the Prince said gently. His had lovingly stroked my cheek, pushing my hair from my face. 

I ached to look at him. I wished so much he would command me to look into his eyes. It terrified me, but after the first instant it was so wondrous to me, his expression, that handsome and almost delicate face, and those fierce amber eyes that seemed to accept no compromise.

"No, my Prince, but whatever it is…" I started.

"Yes, darling…you are being very good. I want you to take it in your mouth, stroke it with your tongue and your lips."

I was shocked. I had never thought of this. I thought suddenly, cruelly of who I had been, a Prince, and I thought of all my young life before I had fallen asleep, and I almost gave a little whimper. But this was my Prince who was commanding me, not some dreadful person I was being given to as a husband who might have demanded this of me. I closed my eyes and took it into my mouth, feeling its huge size, its hardness.

It nudged at the back of my throat, and I pushed up and down on it as the Prince guided me. The taste of it was almost delicious; and it seemed a salty liquid in tiny droplets came out into my mouth, and then I stopped because he had said it was enough.

I opened her eyes.

"Very good, Beauty, very good," said the Prince.

And I could tell he was in pain with his need suddenly. It made me feel proud, and there was in my, even in my helplessness, a sense of power.

But he had risen and was guiding me to my feet. And I realized as I straightened my legs that that debilitating pleasure had caught hold of me. I felt for a moment that I couldn't stand, but to disobey him was unthinkable. Quickly I stood straight, hands behind my neck, and I struggled to keep my hips from going into some slight humiliating movement. Could he see it? I bit her lip again and felt its soreness. "You've done marvelously well today, you've learned so very much," he said tenderly. His voice could be so soft and yet so firm at the same time. It made me feel almost drowsy; that pleasure was melting inside of me. But then I saw that he was reaching for the paddle behind him. I let out a little gasp before I could stop myself, and I felt his hand on my arm, taking my hands away from the back of my neck, and turning me around. 

I wanted to cry out, "What have I done?"  
But his voice came low, crooning in my ear. "And I've learned a very important lesson myself, that pain softens you, makes it easier for you. You are infinitely more malleable from the spanking given you in the Inn than you were before it."

I wanted to shake my head, but I didn't dare. The thought of all those who had seen me spanked tormented me. I had been turned so those at the windows could see my buttocks and between my legs, and the soldiers could see my face, and it had been excruciating. Well, it would only be my Prince now. If only I could tell him, for him anything, but those others were such punishment…

I knew this was wrong. It was not what he wanted me to think, what he was trying to teach me. But now I couldn't think.

He was at my side. He held my chin in his left hand, and he had told me to fold my arms behind my back, which was difficult for me. It was worse than clasping my hands behind my neck. This position arched my body, forced my chest out, and made my chest and face feel painfully naked. I moaned slightly as he lifted my hair and folded the fringe of it from my face, away from him.

my face was positively smarting. But I knew what was to come would be worse.

"Spread your legs ever so slightly. You must be firmly planted on the ground," he said, "so that you can withstand the blows of the paddle."

I wanted to cry out, and through my tightly pressed lips my sobs sounded very loud to me.

"Beauty, Beauty," he crooned. "Do you want to please me?"

"Yes, my Prince," I cried, my lip trembling uncontrollably.

"Then why are you crying so when you haven't even felt the paddle yet? And your buttocks are only a little sore. Why, the Innkeeper's daughter had little strength."

I cried almost bitterly, as if to say in my soft wordless way that it was all true but it was so difficult. It was an explosion of stinging pain on the hot surface of my flesh, and the second spank came much more swiftly than I had thought possible and then there was the third and the fourth, and in spite of myself I was crying aloud.

He stopped and gently kissed me all over my face. "Niall, Beauty," he said. "Now, I give you permission to speak…tell what it is you would have me know…"

"I want to please you, my Prince," I struggled, "but it hurts so, and I've tried so hard to please you." "But, my darling, you please me by bearing this pain. I explained to you earlier that punishment would not always be for a transgression. Sometimes it would be for my pleasure only."

"Yes, my Prince," I cried.

"I shall tell you a little secret about the pain. You are as a tight bowstring. And the pain loosens you, makes you soft as I want you to be. It is worth a thousand little orders and scoldings, and you must not think of resisting it. Do you know what I am saying? You must give yourself over to it. With each crack of the paddle you must think of the next and the next and that it is you Prince doing it to you, giving you this pain."

"Yes, my Prince," I said softly.

He lifted my chin again without further ado and spanked me hard again and again on the buttocks. I felt my buttocks growing hotter and hotter with pain, and the cracks of the paddle sounded loud and somehow shattering to me, as if the sound itself were as dreadful as the pain. I could not understand it.

When he stopped again, I was breathless and almost frantic in her tears, as if the torrent of blows had so humiliated me it was far worse than even a greater pain would have been.

But the Prince folded me in his arms. And feeling his rough clothing against me, and his hard naked chest, and the strength of his shoulders, I felt such a soothing pleasure that my sobs grew soft and open mouthed and languid against him.

His rough breeches were against my sex, and I found myself pressing against him only to have him guide me gently back as if silently reproving me.

"Kiss me," he said, and such a shock of pleasure went through me at the closing of his open mouth over mine that I was almost unable to stand, letting my weight fall against him.

He turned me toward the bed.

"That's enough for tonight," he said softly. "We have a hard journey tomorrow."

And he told me to lie down.

It occurred to me suddenly that he was not going to take me. I heard him moving to the door, and this pleasure between my legs became suddenly an agony. But all I could do was cry softly into the pillow. I tried to keep her sex from touching the sheets because I feared that if it did I could not resist some undulating movement. And I felt sure he was watching me. Of course he'd meant to make me feel pleasure. But without his permission?

I lay rigid, afraid, crying.

A moment later she heard voices behind me.

"Bathe him and put a soothing ointment on his buttocks," the Prince was saying, "and you may talk to the Prince if you like, and he to you. You are to treat him with the utmost respect," said the Prince and then I heard his steps dying away.

I lay too afraid to look behind me. The door was closed again. I heard steps. I heard the cloth in the basin of water.

"It's me, dearest Prince," said a woman's voice, and I realized it was a young woman, a woman my own age, and could only be the Innkeeper's daughter.

I buried my face in the pillow. "This is unbearable," I thought, and suddenly with all my heart I hated the Prince, but I was far too humiliated to think of it. I felt the girl's weight on the bed beside me, and just the rough cloth of her apron brushing against my buttocks caused the sore and stinging flesh to ache more keenly.

I felt as if my buttocks must be enormous, though I knew they were not, or giving off some terrible light with all their redness. The girl would feel their heat; this girl, of all girls, who had tried so hard to please the Prince by spanking me far harder than the Prince had realized.

The wet cloth stroked my shoulders, my arms, my neck. It stroked my back and then my thighs and legs and feet, the girl carefully avoiding my sex and the soreness.

But then after the girl had wrung out the cloth, she touched mybuttocks lightly.

"O, I know it hurts, dearest Princess," she confided. "I'm so sorry, but what could I do when the Prince commanded me?" The rag was rough on the soreness, and I realized this time that the Prince had left me with a score of welts. I moaned, and though I loathed this girl with a violent feeling I'd never had for anyone else in my brief life, the cloth nevertheless felt good to me.

The moist cloth was cooling me; it was like the gentle massaging of an itch. And I grew quiet as the girl continued to bathe me in a circular motion.

"Dearest Prince," the girl said, "I know how you suffer but he is so very handsome, and he will have his way, there's nothing to be done about it. Please talk to me, please tell me that you don't despise me."

"I don't despise you," I said in a small spiritless voice. "How could I blame you or despise you?"

"I had to do it. And what a spectacle it was. Prince, I must tell you something. You may be angry with me, but maybe it will be a consolation to you."

I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek into the pillow. I did not want to hear it. But I liked the girl's voice, its respect and gentleness. The girl did not mean to hurt me. I could feel that awe in the girl, that humility I had known in all my servants all my life. It was no different, not even with this one who had held me over her knee in a tavern and spanked me in the presence of crude men and villagers.

I pictured her as I remembered her from the kitchen door: her dark curly hair in ringlets about her little round face, and those big eyes full of apprehension. How fierce the Prince must have seemed to her! Why she must have been terrified that at any moment, the Prince would order her stripped and humiliated! I smiled to myself, thinking of it. I felt a tenderness for the girl, and for her gentle hands, which were now bathing the hot, aching flesh so carefully.

"All right," I said, "what is it you want to tell me?"

"Only that you were so lovely, dearest Prince, that you have such beauty. Even as you were there, why, how many who seem beautiful could have kept their beauty in such a trial, and you were so beautiful, Prince." Over and over she said this word, better words she did not know. "You were so…so graceful, Prince," she said. "You bore it so well, with such obedience to his Highness, the Prince."

I said nothing. I was thinking of it again, of how it must have seemed to the girl. But it gave me such a frightful sense of myself that I stopped thinking of it. This girl had seen me so closely, had seen the redness of my flesh as it was punished, and had felt me writhing uncontrollably.

I would have cried again, but I didn't want to.

For the first time, through a film of ointment, I felt the girl's naked fingers on me. They massaged the welts.

"Ooooh!" I gasped.

"I'm sorry," said the girl. "I am trying so to be gentle."

"No, you must go on. Rub it in well," I sighed, "it feels good, actually. Maybe it's that moment when you take your fingers away." My buttocks flooded with this pain, itching with it, the welts little hard pebble like bits of pain, and those fingers pinching them and then releasing them.

"Everyone adores you, Prince," the girl whispered. "Everyone has seen your beauty, and nothing to disguise it or hide your defects, and you have no defects. And they are swooning over you, Prince."

"Is that really so? Or do you say it to console me?" I asked.

"O, it is so," said the girl. "O, you should have heard the rich women out in the Inn yard tonight, all of them pretending they weren't envious, but all of them knew that stripped they couldn't hold a candle to you, Prince. And of course the Prince was so beautiful, so handsome and so…"

"Ah, yes," I sighed.

The girl had coated my buttocks now and was putting even more ointment into the flesh. And she worked some of it into my thighs, her fingers stopping just before the hair between my legs, and again, with fierce annoyance and shame, I felt that pleasure coming back. And with this girl!

"O, if the Prince were to know it," I thought suddenly. I couldn't imagine him being pleased, and it suddenly occurred to me that he might punish me any time I felt this pleasure without him giving it to me. I tried to put it out of my mind. I wished I knew where he was now.

"Tomorrow," the girl said, "when you go on to the Prince's castle, the road all along the way will be lined with those who want to see you. Word is spreading all through the Kingdom…"

Beauty gave a little start at these words. "Are you sure of it?" It was too much to think of suddenly. I remembered that peaceful moment in the afternoon forest. I had been alone ahead of the Prince and had some how managed to forget the soldiers following him. And suddenly to think of people all along the road waiting to see me! I remembered the crowded village streets, those inevitable moments when my naked thighs or chest even had been brushed by an arm or the fabric of a skirt — I felt my breath halt.

"But he wants this for me," I thought. "Not just that he see me but that all see me."

"It gives the people such pleasure to see you," he had said tonight as they entered this little town. He had prodded me on up ahead of him, and I had been crying so fiercely as I saw all about me those shoes and boots from which I dared not look up.

"But you are so lovely, Prince, and they will be telling their grandchildren about it," said the tavern girl. "They cannot wait to feast their eyes upon you, and you will not disappoint them, no matter what they have heard. Imagine that, never disappointing anyone…" The girl's voice trailed off as though she were in thought. "O, I wish I could follow you to see it."

"But you don't understand," I whispered, unable suddenly to contain myself. "You don't realize…"

"Yes, I do," said the girl. "Of course I do…I've seen the Princes and Princesses when they come through in their magnificent coats and gowns covered with jewels, and I know how it must feel to be opened to the world as if you were a flower, all of their eyes like fingers prying at you, but you are so…so splendid finally, Prince, and so rare. And you are his Prince, and he has claimed you and all know you are in his power and must do as he commands you. It is no shame to you, Prince. How could it be, with so great a Prince to command you? O, do you think that there aren't men and women who would give up everything to take your place, if only they had your beauty?"  
I was startled by this. I thought about it. People giving up everything, taking my place. It had not occurred to me. I remembered that moment in the forest.

But then I remembered being spanked in the Inn, and all of those others watching. I remembered sobbing helplessly, and hating my buttocks propped up in the air, and my legs open, and that paddle coming down again and again. Finally the pain was the least of it. I thought of the crowds on the road. I tried to picture it. It would happen to me tomorrow. I would feel this drenching humiliation, this pain, but all those people would be there to witness my humiliation, to amplify it.

The door had opened.

The Prince had come into the room. And the little tavern girl jumped up and was bowing to him.

"Your Highness," the girl said breathlessly.

"You've done your work very well," said the Prince.

"It was a great honor, your Highness," said the girl.

The Prince came to the bed, and clasping my right wrist, he drew me up out of the bed and stood me beside it. Obediently, I looked down, and not knowing what to do with my hands, I quickly brought them to the back of my neck.

I could almost feel the Prince's satisfaction.

"Excellent, my darling," he said. "Isn't he lovely, your Prince?" he said to the tavern girl.

"O, yes, your Highness."

"Did you talk to her and console her as you were bathing her?"

"O, yes, your Highness, I told him how much everyone admired him and how much they wanted to…"

"Yes, to see him," the Prince said.

There was a pause. I wondered if they were both looking at me, and suddenly I felt myself naked in the sight of both of them. It seemed one or the other I could bear, but both of them staring at my body and sex was too much for me.

But the Prince embraced me as if seeing that I needed embracing, and gently squeezing my sore flesh, sending another soft shock of shameful pleasure through me. I knew my face was red again. I had always blushed so easily. And were there other ways in which he could tell what his hands did to me? I would cry again if I could not conceal this mounting pleasure.

"Down on your knees, my darling," said the Prince with a little snap of his fingers.

In a shock I obeyed, seeing the rough floorboards before me. I could see the Prince's black boots, and then the crude leather shoes of the serving girl.

"Now, approach your servant and kiss her shoes. Show her how grateful you are for her devotion to you." I didn't stop to think of it. But I felt my tears come again as I obeyed, depositing each kiss on the worn leather of the girl's shoes as gracefully as I could. Above I heard the girl's murmured thanks to the Prince.

"Your Highness," the girl said, "it is I who want to kiss my Prince, I beg you."

The Prince must have nodded, because the girl fell to her knees, and, stroking my hair, kissed my upturned face with great reverence.

"Now, you see there the posts of the foot of the bed," the Prince said to the girl. Niall of course knew that the bed had high posts, which held a coffered ceiling over it. "Tie your Prince to those posts with his hands and legs quite wide apart so that as I lie down I can look up at him," said the Prince. "Tie him with these satin bands so his skin won't be injured, but tie him very firmly for he must sleep in this position and his weight must not pull him loose."

I was stunned.

I was in a delirium as I was lifted to stand at the foot of the bed. I obeyed pliantly as the girl told me to spread my legs. I felt the satin go tight around my right ankle and then it firmly bound my left ankle, and then the girl, standing before me on the bed, bound the my hands high on either side of me.

I was spreadeagled, looking down at the bed, and with terror, I realized that the Prince must see how I suffered; he must see the shame of the my hardened sex, those fluids I could neither check or conceal at my tip, and, turning my face into my arm, I whimpered softly.

But the worst of it was that he did not mean to take me. He had tied me here out of reach of himself so that as he slept I must look down on him.

Now the girl was dismissed, secretly depositing a little kiss on my thigh before she left. And me, crying softly, realized I was alone with the Prince. I did not dare to look at him.

"My beautiful obedient one," he sighed.

And to my horror I felt, as he drew near, the hard handle of that dreadful wooden paddle nudging my stiffened sex, so cruelly exposed by my open legs.

I struggled to pretend this was not happening. But I could feel that revealing fluid, and I knew the Prince knew of my tormenting pleasure.

"I have taught you much, and I am so very pleased with you," he said, "and so now you know a new suffering, a new sacrifice for you Lord and master. I could soothe the burning craving but I shall let you suffer it and know the meaning of it, and that only your Prince can give you that relief that you long for." I couldn't control my moan, even though I muffled it against my arm. I feared that any moment I might move my hips in helpless, humiliating entreaty.

He had snuffed the candles.

The room was dark.

Beneath my feet I felt the mattress give with his weight.

I leaned my head against my arm and felt secure in the satin bonds as I let myself hang there. But this torment, this torment…and there was nothing I could do to alleviate it. 

I prayed the swelling between my legs would die away, as the throbbing in my buttocks was cooling and dying away. And then falling to sleep, I thought calmly, dreamily almost, of the crowds awaiting me on the roads to the Prince's castle.


End file.
